What is laser interferometer used for?
Laser interferometry can be used to determine the diameter of fibres with a circular cross-section. The fibre is placed in the beam and the interference fringes projected onto a screen.
How does a laser interferometer work?
Laser interferometry is used by gravitational wave detectors like LIGO. A laser interferometer measures the resulting distance by splitting a laser beam into two, sending each of the two beams along different directions in space (each along one of the two arms of the detector), and then recombining the beams.
Is laser used in interferometry?
A homodyne interferometer uses a single-frequency laser source, whereas a heterodyne interferometer uses a laser source with two close frequencies. The homodyne interferometer using a HeNe laser as its source is a commonly used position sensor in FT spectrometers.
What is DC laser interferometer?
Laser interferometer uses A.C laser as the light source and thus it enables the measurements to be made over longer distance. The laser beam wavelength is exact and pure for highly accurate measurements. The laser interferometers utilize the principles of both optical techniques and digital electronics.
What is precision interferometer?
Demands on dimensional stability and on the detailed knowledge of thermal expansion of “high tech” materials are growing constantly. The method of absolute length measurements by optical interferometry is the appropriate tool for extracting these properties in a direct way.
What do you mean by interferometer?
Interferometers are investigative tools used in many fields of science and engineering. They are called interferometers because they work by merging two or more sources of light to create an interference pattern, which can be measured and analyzed; hence ‘Interfere-o-meter’, or interferometer.
How can an interferometer be used to improve resolution?
This can be achieved by increasing the size of a telescope’s primary mirror: the larger the mirror diameter, the higher its resolution — that is, the better its ability to distinguish such small details. The hunger for even better resolutions is the reason for the use of interferometry in astronomy.